AP Photo/Rick RycroftA
beach-side road is half destroyed as debris litters the sand at
Lalomanu, Samoa, as they search for bodies, Wednesday, a day after a
deadly tsunami rolled through several South Pacific island nations.
Medical Teams International will send doctors and nurses to help typhoon victims in the Philippines. Mercy Corps is dispatching aid workers to Sumatra following the earthquake that hit the Indonesian island.

Both Oregon-based agencies are also sending assistance to tsunami-wracked Samoa through partner organizations in the South Pacific island nation. They may expand response as the scope of the disasters becomes clear.

Lina Thompson, a Samoan American who heads U.S. programs for the Seattle-based World Vision relief organization, aims to depart for Samoa on Sunday. Thompson, who helped respond to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, hasn't been able to reach her mother's sisters in Samoa.

"The village that our family's from is kind of remote," Thompson said. "What we've been told is that the roads are out and all the telephone lines are out. I'm hoping it's not bad."

At Medical Teams International in Tigard, emergency contributions have started slowly, said spokeswoman Marlene Minor said, apparently due to the recession's effect on donors and to reduced abilities of local media to cover international stories.

But Mercy Corps, which put out an e-mail appeal at noon Wednesday, raised $23,000 as of 5 p.m. for work in Samoa and Indonesia. The Portland-based organization does not plan emergency response in the Philippines.

In Padang, Indonesia, where Mercy Corps was already working on disaster preparedness, a team from the agency will distribute clean water and supplies for temporary shelter. Padang, the capital of West Sumatra, is the closest major city to the epicenter of Wednesday's 7.6-magnitude earthquake and the less powerful one that followed.

In Samoa, hit Tuesday by an 8-magnitude quake and flooding, Mercy Corps is funneling assistance through micro-loan agency South Pacific Business Development, which will provide water, shelter and clothing. Faith-based Medical Teams International plans to channel donations through Samoan churches.

"They're still pulling people out of the rubble in Samoa," Minor said. "We'd consider sending a team if they said they needed one and if we could raise the money to do it."

Medical Teams International hopes to dispatch a volunteer team of two nurses and two doctors to the Philippines on Saturday. The worst problem there is flooding, Minor said.

"There are a lot of waterborne diseases they're concerned about people facing," Minor said.